I totally agree about side issues being of interest and encouraged on the forum. A big part of this site is entertainment after all as you say. I am talking about necessary kiting instruction course content not forum topics however. Instructors will focus on getting the student up and planing at times, the basic mechanics and not bother with a lot of the other content listed. They used to teach people to fly, drive and dive that way back in the day but for some reason they added a lot more content. Wonder why?

The snowboard model is very mechanical at the start of this thread. Why, because someone else is making most of the critical decisions, not the snowboarder. In our sport it is up to the kiter to make most of these choices, no one else outside of some concessions will do it for them. Conditions on pieste are heavily controlled, lifts are suspended with hazardous weather which may be closely monitored, runs may be closed with unsuitable conditions, rules are applied and enforced with minimal wiggle room, there is a resident rescue force/EMTs, etc.. In kiting, you're largely on your own. Often it is no big deal at other times people may have unnecessary hassles, down time, gear damage, be scared, harmed and/or access threatened sometimes out of avoidable ignorance from lack of complete instruction.

Skiing and snowboarding can be viewed in terms of five skills: Stance&balance: your ability to align your body and balance in fore/aft, lateral, vertical and rotational planesPivoting: turning the lower joints (i.e. turning the femurs in hip socket)Edging: tipping the skis or board onto an edgePressure control: managing how much pressure is applied through your skis/board throughout a turnTiming&coordination: synchronously executing movements, and adapting timing to meet different turn shapes, terrain, conditions, etc.

OK, here you go:

Stance&balance: your ability to align your body and balance in fore/aft, lateral, vertical and rotational planesPivoting: turning the lower joints (i.e. turning the femurs in hip socket)Kite control: control the kite at all times to achieve optimum performance, without looking muchPressure control: managing how much pressure is applied through your board at all timesTiming&coordination: synchronously executing movements, and adapting timing to meet different turn shapes, terrain, conditions, etc.

I think the difficulty in getting a specific model here is the ever changing variable of Kite size- Wind speed - Board size. In snowboarding, if you go down the same slope, gravity is generally the constant driving force so it is more predictable. In wakeboarding, the boat driver or cable speed can be consistent, so that is predictable.

With kiteboarding, although the principles of riding the board are definable, the way someone learns is constantly affected by the changing variable of the wind, so until someone gets the feel for several conditions with a given kite, board, wind speed, and even location the method of instruction becomes much more broad. I think this makes a kiteboarding instructor have to work a little harder to cover the techniques that work for all the various possible conditions.

Just my observations. I am sure the experienced instructors on the forum have much more specific ideas on this.

If that earlier IKO teaching manual is current, I must ask at what point they think it is needed to teach the student how to perform a self rescue and packdown? Surely it should be at some point during level as half of level 1 tuition takes part in the water, ideally it should be at least demonstrated if not practiced before entering the water. All these years and it still seems back to front in some ways.

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